Learning a new videogame can be frustrating. But for kids with disabilities, the experience can be especially hard. If you can’t play what the other kids are playing, it’s like being picked last for the kickball team.

Take Giddeon, whom the AbleGamers Foundation met at one of their “Accessibility Arcades” in Atlantic City, New Jersey. According to the AbleGamers Foundation website, Giddeon didn’t want to play any games. A rare disease had stunted the growth of his arms. Only a few fingers had formed. Holding a game controller was tough.

Already, too many kids with disabilities feel like they’re being left out of all the fun. For Giddeon, the experience of not being able to play the game could have been a minor encounter with low self-esteem, or a major lesson in humiliation.

A boy uses the Adroit accessible controller at an “Accessibility Arcade.”
Photo courtesy AbleGamers Foundation

But after encouragement from the AbleGamers staff, Giddeon used an “accessible controller” called the Adroit with the racing game Forza 3. “Within seconds he was racing past the competition and smiling brightly at his newfound driving skills,” the AbleGamers Foundation website said. “By the end of that day he was coming in first place in every race.”